The president admitted as much during a January 27 call with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto. Transcripts of the conversation published Thursday by the Washington Post offer proof that Trump has long been aware the Mexican government will not fund the border wall project, despite his endless assurances to the contrary. In the call, he pleads with Peña Nieto to play along with his ruse.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will begin constructing the first segment of President Trump’s border wall in November through a national wildlife refuge, using money it’s already received from Congress.

As President Trump is finding out in his ill-fated war with Mexico, the problem that world powers have when they pick fights with seemingly powerless countries is that even small dogs have sharp teeth.

The Trump foreign policy chaos is likely to accelerate centrifugal forces in the global system that will be the death-knell of American exceptionalism and leadership, hastening a rebalancing of global power with the United States as just another player.

The existing barrier, which already covers one-third of the border with Mexico, has not stopped the drugs or the cartels, and closing the gaps won’t change that. More effective and less expensive measures exist to combat the narcos, from better anti-money laundering rules to legalizing drugs.

On last night’s episode of Conan, the fearless late night host packed a bag and took his show on the road — to Mexico. O’Brien’s goal: Use his comedic platform to build goodwill among our Mexican neighbors.

President Trump is targeting millions of people for possible deportation, but Americans are warm to the notion that immigrants should be welcome. In fact, a new McClatchy-Marist poll finds that even 72 percent of Trump’s own supporters want a path to citizenship for immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.

The always helpful Conan O’Brien headed to Mexico to give President Trump a hand in financing his controversial pet project. Roaming the streets of Mexico City, the affable TBS host brought a tiny brick wall “bank,” asking for coin donations from the Mexican people – whose reactions ranged from amused to angry.

No matter how much undocumented immigrants pay in taxes and Social Security, and regardless of what they contribute to their communities, they are now more vulnerable than ever before. Something as simple as failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign can lead to one person’s deportation and the devastation of an entire family.

Mexican officials have flatly rejected the Trump administration’s plan to deport to Mexico migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S. southern border, regardless of nationality. The officials said Mexico will never accept the return of Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Hondurans, and others who traveled through the country on their way to the United States, most often to ask for asylum here.

Meyers ridiculed Trump for completely fabricating the idea of an uncontrollable immigrant crime wave and for inflating the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, noting the non-alternative fact of a net loss of 140,000 Mexicans between 2009 and 2014. “That’s right,” quipped the Late Night host. “America has turned into a bad movie and people are walking out.”

President Donald Trump’s administration will leave protections in place for immigrants who entered the country illegally as children, known as “dreamers,” but will consider all other illegal immigrants subject to deportation, according to guidance released on Tuesday.

His main complaint was that the news media had uncovered leaks about intercepted communications between Michael Flynn, ousted this week as national security adviser and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kisylak, and leaks about his own conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia. “The first thing I thought of, how does the press get this information?” he asked.

A political act of this kind can have far-reaching consequences for the ecological and even evolutionary landscapes. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has estimated that the wall will threaten 111 endangered species as it passes through four key wildlife reserves on the U.S. side of the border and several nature reserves on the Mexican side.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto can continue to do Washington’s bidding, ensuring his political demise, or he can challenge Trump by asking why Mexico should fight North America’s drug war on its own soil and at its own expense. If Trump persists in sending a bill to Mexico City for his wall, Mexico should seriously consider sending a bill in return to Washington to pay for the U.S. drug war.

Independent estimates from MIT researchers of initial construction costs run from US$25 billion to $40 billion – a far cry from the $15 billion claimed by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell – plus $500 million to $750 million per year to keep the barrier repaired. One way or another, it is U.S. taxpayers who will pay for Trump’s border wall – not the Mexicans.

Like his attempts to spread lies about the U.S. unemployment rate (not to mention lies about the size of his inauguration crowd), Trump’s argument for building a wall is built on the fabrication that America is under siege from undocumented immigrants. It’s not. Trump’s proposal is a radical fix for a dilemma already in decline

Immigrants and their families are deeply entrenched in America, which is why a wide range of interests pushed back when Trump let his orders fly. Mayors, police chiefs, legal scholars, refugee advocates, educators, and everyday citizens have all signaled their determination to resist his policies.

The U.S. and Mexico are partners in a variety of cross-border cooperative agreements, but President Trump’s continued criticism of Mexico threatens to return U.S.-Mexico relations to the frosty state they were in the last century, when the relationship was so delicate that Nazi Germany made a play for an alliance with Mexico.

Trump wants the measure to be part of a broader tax overhaul package that the U.S. Congress is contemplating. “Our country’s policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous. But by doing it that way we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall. Just through that mechanism alone,” Spicer told reporters

Taking a page out of Trump’s playbook, President Enrique Pena Nieto fired the salvo on Twitter, after Trump’s call for Mexico to foot the bill for his planned wall prompted a groundswell of calls in Mexico for next week’s meeting to be called off.

More than 6 million Americans are directly employed by majority foreign-owned firms, and over 12 million American jobs are linked to foreign investment. These jobs pay one-third more than the economy wide average, 40 percent are in manufacturing, and there has been significant growth in Rust Belt states.